Aventura Hospital and Medical Center received full accreditation with PCI from the Society of Chest Pain Centers (SCPC). On Wednesday, April 11 Aventura Hospital and Medical Center honored the team members who participated in its re-accreditation.

“Aventura Hospital and Medical Center continually strives to provide excellent care to our patients, and the Society of Chest Pain Centers provides the guidelines with which to do so,” said Heather Rohan, CEO of Aventura Hospital and Medical Center. “We are very proud to celebrate this accreditation with the team of physicians, nurses, Cardiac Catheterization Lab team, Emergency Room team and our Fire Rescue partners.”

Heart attacks are the leading cause of death in the United States, with 600,000 people dying annually of heart disease. More than five million Americans visit hospitals each year with chest pain. SCPC’s goal is to significantly reduce the mortality rate of these patients by teaching the public to recognize and react to the early symptoms of a possible heart attack, reduce the time that it takes to receive treatment, and increase the accuracy and effectiveness of treatment.

The Accredited Chest Pain Center’s protocol- driven and systematic approach to patient management allows physicians to reduce time to treatment during the critical early stages of a heart attack, when treatments are most effective, and to better monitor patients when it is not clear whether or not they are having a coronary event. Such observation helps ensure that patients are neither sent home too early nor needlessly admitted.

With the increase in chest pain centers came the need to establish standards designed to improve the consistency and quality of care provided to patients. SCPC’s accreditation process ensures that centers meet or exceed quality-of-care measures in acute cardiac medicine.

The Accredited Chest Pain Center at Aventura Hospital and Medical Center has demonstrated its expertise and commitment to quality patient care by meeting or exceeding a wide set of stringent criteria and undergoing an onsite review by a team of SPCP’s accreditation review specialists. Key areas in which an Accredited Chest Pain Center must demonstrate expertise include the following:

• Integrating the emergency department with the local emergency medical system

• Assessing, diagnosing, and treating patients quickly

• Effectively treating patients with low risk for acute coronary syndrome and no assignable cause for their symptoms